Tabletop Gaming and Escape Room News and Reviews.

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival Review

Lanterns: The Harvest Festival by Foxtrot Games and Renegade Game Studios, is a tile laying and set collecting game, where players compete by decorating the palace lake with floating lanterns to have the most points before the end of the game by making dedications.

To play Lanterns, players will place tiles on the table and collect cards based on the color pointed in the direction the player is sitting. But, all other players will also receive a card based on the color on the tile that is facing them. Players can also receive bonus cards if they are able to match the color on their tile’s sides with the existing color of the tile in play. Players can only hold up to 12 cards in their hand at a time, which adds in a nice hand management component to the game. After players have collected the right combination of cards they can make a “dedication” to receive points. There are three types of dedications; four of a kind, three pairs, or seven unique. The point value for each dedication changes based on how many dedications have already been made of that type.

I love this game! This game is great for gamers of all experience levels. It only takes a few minutes to teach new players how to play and it is not overly bogged down with confusing rules. Because of the simple rules, it is also a good game to play when you are not wanting to play a super in-depth game. Lanterns is a very non-competitive game, where players do not directly attack each other. However, the game does have a considerable amount of strategy involved with the placement of the tiles, since everyone receives a card when a tile is played unless there are no remaining cards of that color. Players also need to be ready to change their strategy based on the dedications that other players are making, in order to optimize the amount of points they get when making dedications. People who like other games such as, Carcassonne , Takenoko, and Kingdomino should enjoy playing Lanterns: The Harvest Festival.